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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?

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Speaker 1: From House Stepworks dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline and on Stuff Mom Never

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Speaker 1: Told You. We have touched on a number of aspects

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Speaker 1: of parenting and family life and sibling dynamics. But a

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Speaker 1: listener wrote in with a really great suggestion that we

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Speaker 1: had not touched on at all, which is, uh, foster

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Speaker 1: care totally different kind of sort of emergency family that

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Speaker 1: a lot of kids in the United States and abroad

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Speaker 1: end up being placed in. UM. Foster care is not

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Speaker 1: meant to be a long term situation for most kids.

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Speaker 1: The goal is to UM get them into a safe

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Speaker 1: place and then UM have them end up in a

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Speaker 1: in some kind of stable home environment, preferably reunited with

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Speaker 1: their birth parents. But the reality of the foster system

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Speaker 1: in the United States is not quite so optimistic right UM.

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Speaker 1: As of September two thousand nine, they were an estimated

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Speaker 1: four thousand, seven and seventy three children in foster care.

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Speaker 1: That's according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway from the

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Speaker 1: Department of Health. And Human Human Services, and just under

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Speaker 1: half of those children had a case goal of reunification

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Speaker 1: with their families. And unfortunately, not all children are reunited

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Speaker 1: with their birth families. Some are adopted into their foster

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Speaker 1: care families or some fine permanent homes, but unfortunately a

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Speaker 1: lot of children in the system age out, which means

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Speaker 1: that they never found a permanent home um. And so

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Speaker 1: they are they don't receive that that feeling of security

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Speaker 1: and permanence that is ideal. Right, they turn eighteen and

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Speaker 1: been though they have been essentially wards of the state

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Speaker 1: up until then, they at that point become legal adults

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Speaker 1: and they have really no support system whatsoever. Um And

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Speaker 1: we'll we'll get into that a little bit later, but

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Speaker 1: just to clarify things, According to the US government's definition

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Speaker 1: of foster care, we're talking about a twenty four hours

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Speaker 1: substitute care for children outside of their own homes, which

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Speaker 1: would include non relative foster family homes, relative foster family

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Speaker 1: homes which should be living with an aunt or an

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Speaker 1: uncle for instance, group homes, emergencies, shelters, residential facilities, and

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Speaker 1: pre adoptive homes. Yes, and as far as the number

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Speaker 1: of kids entering and exiting every year UM again. In

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Speaker 1: fiscal year two thousand nine, UH, two hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: five thousand, give or take, children entered and two hundred

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Speaker 1: and seventy six thousand exited foster care. And of the

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Speaker 1: children who left the system, in it up being reunited

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Speaker 1: with their parents, are primary caretakers, were adopted, and eleven

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Speaker 1: percent were emancipated from their primary caregivers. And just for

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Speaker 1: a couple more stats to give you an idea of

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Speaker 1: the foster population, it's typically slightly more boys than girls

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Speaker 1: are in the foster system in the US as of

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine. Those are the most recent stats we've got. UH.

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Speaker 1: It's fifty three percent mail versus forty seven percent female.

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Speaker 1: And the median age of kids entering foster care is

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Speaker 1: nine point seven years, and the average child in a

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Speaker 1: foster situation will move through three placements. And seven percent

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Speaker 1: of those kids in foster care will stay in the

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Speaker 1: system for five and a half years, whereas at the

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Speaker 1: other end of the spectrum will stay in less than

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Speaker 1: one month. So there's such a wide range of situations.

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Speaker 1: But sadly, with a lot of the outcomes that we found,

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Speaker 1: there's there there are a out of bright spots. No,

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Speaker 1: and I want to talk about a little bit about

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Speaker 1: where um, most of these foster care uh, when most

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Speaker 1: of the foster children live. I didn't realize that it's

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Speaker 1: so concentrated. UM. But according to Children's Rights dot Org,

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Speaker 1: more than half of the children in foster care live

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Speaker 1: only in nine states, which are California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,

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Speaker 1: New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Yeah. I didn't realize

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Speaker 1: that either. UM. And compensation for foster parenting is done

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Speaker 1: on a state by state basis, and I found it

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Speaker 1: interesting that California is one of those highly concentrated states

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Speaker 1: because they have one of the biggest state level problems

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Speaker 1: with not fairly compensating uh these foster caregivers. For instance, UM.

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Speaker 1: This was a study conducted by Children's Rights along with

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Speaker 1: the National Foster Parent Association and the University of Maryland

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Speaker 1: School of Social Work in two thousand seven, and for

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Speaker 1: a two year old in the foster system, the foster

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Speaker 1: parents would be reimbursed four d and twenty five dollars

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Speaker 1: per month. When they went in and actually calculated the

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Speaker 1: cost of living for or caregiving for that two year old,

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Speaker 1: the study found that they should be paying the state

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Speaker 1: should be paying them sixty percent more more at a

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Speaker 1: rate of six five dollars. And that will go up.

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Speaker 1: And that's just for a two year old. If you

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Speaker 1: take it in a sixteen year old, the cost of

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Speaker 1: living goes up even higher. And probably for that reason.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, the California Court of Appeals ruled

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Speaker 1: that the state's money compensating foster parents is so low

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Speaker 1: that it violated federal child welfare law. Yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: illegal and insufficient. And according to The l A Times,

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Speaker 1: writing about this UM, the number of children placed with

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Speaker 1: families had plummeted as costs rose and fewer families were

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Speaker 1: willing to take in children. So not compensating family is

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Speaker 1: enough for the foster care they provide is directly affecting

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Speaker 1: how many families take in children. Right, And we should

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Speaker 1: say that this podcast is going to focus more on

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Speaker 1: the situation for the kids rather than how the any

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Speaker 1: kind of training or process that parents go into to

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Speaker 1: uh to take kids into their homes. UM. And I

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Speaker 1: guess before we go further, maybe we should talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about how the foster care system in the

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Speaker 1: United States came about. Indeed, references to it go all

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Speaker 1: the way back to the Old Testament in the Talmud

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Speaker 1: were caring for dependent children was established as a duty

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Speaker 1: under the law, so it wasn't something that people never

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Speaker 1: thought about. Taking in children was was part of as

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Speaker 1: as was taking care of widows. Um. The English poor

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Speaker 1: law in the sixteenth century lead to more stringent regulation,

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Speaker 1: and in fifteen sixty two those laws allowed placement of

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Speaker 1: poor children into indentured service until they came of age,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't sound like a a precursor to the foster

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Speaker 1: care system, but but it is. Um the practice actually

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Speaker 1: followed Europeans to America and was the beginning of placing

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Speaker 1: children in homes. And then for a little historical fact,

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Speaker 1: in sixteen thirty six, Benjamin Eaton became the first foster

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Speaker 1: child on US soil, although I guess it was not

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Speaker 1: technically US soil obviously back then, but the first person,

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Speaker 1: you know, first kid in the region that was to

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Speaker 1: be known as, yes, the United States of America. But

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Speaker 1: it wasn't really until Charles Loring Brace in the eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirties that the foster movement in the United States really

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Speaker 1: took off. He was the founder of the Children's Aid Society,

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Speaker 1: and he came up with this idea of taking um,

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Speaker 1: I guess indigent children from the streets of New York

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Speaker 1: to move them to the Midwest and the West because

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Speaker 1: of the new train lines. And he was like, we

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Speaker 1: could take these kids from the city streets, get them

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Speaker 1: out to what we're called free foster homes in the Midwest,

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Speaker 1: and they could they could farm, they could be out

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Speaker 1: on a land and be in a much healthier environment,

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Speaker 1: right he Um. He definitely thought that raising a child

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Speaker 1: took more than just you know, paying for them to eat.

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Speaker 1: They needed gainful work. Um, they needed a supportive, wholesome

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Speaker 1: family environment. And so yeah, he advertised in the South

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Speaker 1: and West for families willing to take in children, and

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Speaker 1: this was really the beginning of UM institutional care. Um.

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Speaker 1: He he didn't want children to be stunted. But he

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Speaker 1: also thought that there was a bit of a poor

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Speaker 1: immigrant problem in New York as he saw it, and

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Speaker 1: definitely wanted to be part of not only supporting these

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Speaker 1: children to have better lives, but sort of cleaning up

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Speaker 1: the streets of New York. Um. Yeah, between eighteen fifty

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Speaker 1: three and nineteen twenty nine, more than one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand abandoned, abused, and orphaned children were taken by

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Speaker 1: train from New York City and shipped to families on

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Speaker 1: farms across the country, both to to be farm hands,

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Speaker 1: to get out in nature or get off the streets.

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Speaker 1: And although these trains were referred to as orphan trains,

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Speaker 1: many weren't actually orphans but were actually surrendered by their families.

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Speaker 1: And while transporting these these kids across the country might

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Speaker 1: seem uh, pretty controversial by today's standards, this really was

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Speaker 1: a revolutionary option to orphan asylums and alms houses, which

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Speaker 1: were where those kids might end up otherwise and they

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to learn any kind of trade and

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Speaker 1: typically would not be treated very well. UM. And one

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Speaker 1: side note to the Children's Aid Society and the work

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Speaker 1: that Charles Loring Brace did UM. One of their projects

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Speaker 1: was starting up mother's meetings for poorer women in New

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Speaker 1: York City. UM and it was the forerunner to p

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Speaker 1: t A because these teachers would teach mothers basically how

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Speaker 1: to be better mothers. And this was taking place I

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Speaker 1: think they first started in eighteen sixty three. So not

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Speaker 1: only was h is braced trying to get kids off

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Speaker 1: the street, but also rehabilitate entire families, which is a

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Speaker 1: theme that is still um, you know, idealized in the

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Speaker 1: foster care system that we have in place today. But

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Speaker 1: um it's a it's a hard, um and challenging goal

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Speaker 1: to meet in reality, right And you could say that

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Speaker 1: it's a challenge because out of home placement is associated

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Speaker 1: with disruptions and attachment. And this is according to a

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Speaker 1: University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics analysis from two thousand.

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Speaker 1: They found that losses and lack of permanence undermine a

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Speaker 1: child's attempt to form a secure attachment with a primary caregiver.

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Speaker 1: So children who are you know, shuttled around from foster

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Speaker 1: care home to foster home, or even if they're simply

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Speaker 1: taken moved one time from their biological family to a

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Speaker 1: foster family. That upsets a child's stability, and even visits

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Speaker 1: with parents can be upsetting to young children and disruptive

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Speaker 1: to development if they are trying to um get used

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Speaker 1: to their foster family. And the longer than a child

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Speaker 1: stays in foster care, the less of the chance they

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Speaker 1: have of reuniting with birth parents and along with that,

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Speaker 1: you'll see often an increase in behavioral problems. Now, the

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Speaker 1: behavioral problems for kids in foster care, obviously are are

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Speaker 1: largely predicted by behavioral problems and abuse that they might

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Speaker 1: have suffered going into the foster system. But that issue

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Speaker 1: of stability is is such a big determinant of outcomes

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Speaker 1: for kids in this system. In a two thousand seven

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Speaker 1: m I T study, these abused children who were placed

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Speaker 1: in foster care were found to be far more likely

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Speaker 1: than other children to commit crimes, drop out of school,

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Speaker 1: join welfare, experienced substance abuse problems, or enter the homeless population.

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Speaker 1: And another study found that UM among the youth formerly

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Speaker 1: in foster care, the twelve month rate of panic disorder

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Speaker 1: was three times that of the general population, and along

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Speaker 1: with it, they had a seven times higher rate of

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Speaker 1: drug dependence, seven times high rate of bulimia, and twice

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Speaker 1: the rate of alcohol dependence. So you have all of

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Speaker 1: these negative behaviors going on and UM. There was one

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Speaker 1: study that was cited in a presentation from d Wilson,

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Speaker 1: whose executive director of the Northwest Institute for Children and Families,

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Speaker 1: and she references this study comparing maltreated kids moved from

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Speaker 1: their homes into some kind of foster situation to maltreated

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Speaker 1: kids who remain in their home and it possibly still

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Speaker 1: abusive home environment but there, but they're there. They're obviously

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Speaker 1: have case workers that are coming in and trying to

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Speaker 1: to manage the in home environment. And the kids who

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Speaker 1: are moved out of their homes actually failed worse behaviorally,

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Speaker 1: which underscores to these researchers just how important that home

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Speaker 1: relationship and the parental relationship really is to understand how

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Speaker 1: to service those children and getting them out of abusive

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Speaker 1: or neglectful environments while not robbing them of what the

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Speaker 1: obviously crucial role of a stable home environment is still

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Speaker 1: a giant puzzle for researchers. Yeah, and the recommendation out

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Speaker 1: of a part of a Casey National Alumni study, and

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Speaker 1: they refer to youth formerly in foster care as alumni.

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Speaker 1: One of the recommendations is to increase access to mental

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Speaker 1: health screening and treatment for youth in foster care and

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Speaker 1: those who have been adopted out or aged out, because

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Speaker 1: they just tend to have more of these problems that

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Speaker 1: we've talked about, a lot of it comes from that

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Speaker 1: disruption in the family life and the connections to their

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Speaker 1: family well and according to the National Survey of Child

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Speaker 1: and Adolescent Well Being UM, it seems that infants and

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Speaker 1: toddlers actually fair worst on developmental measures after eighteen months

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Speaker 1: in care. And that might be because the younger the population,

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Speaker 1: the foster population, the more vulnerable that they've been to

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Speaker 1: UM caregiver mistreatment before they are taken out of the home. Right.

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Speaker 1: There was one UM instance where what study was it

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Speaker 1: that we read where a guy was talking about how

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Speaker 1: he had gone through the system, but he it took

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Speaker 1: him years before he realized that his his last family,

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Speaker 1: his permanent family. They were not going to hurt him

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Speaker 1: or abuse him. But he had been exposed to so

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Speaker 1: many different homes where he had experienced abuse that he

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Speaker 1: was just he was used to it, and he expected

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Speaker 1: to be treated poorly by families who took him in UM.

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Speaker 1: And there's also some scholarship indicating the kinship care, as

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Speaker 1: in moving children out of maybe home with their parents

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Speaker 1: to a relative is more stable than foster care. And

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Speaker 1: again there it seems to be that that connection to

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Speaker 1: the family UM. But I'm sure it is a huge

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Speaker 1: problem for these case workers who obviously they want to

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Speaker 1: ensure the best treatment for the children. UM. But once

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Speaker 1: you break those ties, you know, what do you what

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Speaker 1: do you do? I'm sure it's it's it's difficult all around. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And there's definitely an effort to maintain the family ties.

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Speaker 1: It's it's not a quick simple process to put a

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Speaker 1: child in the foster care system. According to the Child

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Speaker 1: Welfare Information Gateway, before a decision is made to remove

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Speaker 1: a child, child welfare staff must make reasonable efforts to

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Speaker 1: safely maintain children with their family and that could include

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Speaker 1: providing support services, having court intervention, and that court intervention

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Speaker 1: depends on the risk to the child, whether it's low

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Speaker 1: to moderate or no risk or or moderate too high.

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Speaker 1: And like I said, it's not a quick process. Claims

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Speaker 1: of abuse or neglect have to be investigated, and if

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Speaker 1: the child is at low to moderate risk, referrals may

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Speaker 1: be made to community based or volunteer in home child

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Speaker 1: welfare services. So definitely maintaining UM the family and then

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Speaker 1: from moderate to high risk children, family may be offered

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Speaker 1: in home services or may seek court intervention and the

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Speaker 1: court may eventually order removal. UH. And once children are placed,

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Speaker 1: we should mention that adoption does happen. UM foster parents

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Speaker 1: do have the ability to adopt foster kids. It used

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Speaker 1: to be before in the nineteen seventies it was discouraged

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Speaker 1: for fear of losing good foster families and this idea

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Speaker 1: that older kids are unadoptable. Which all of this reminds

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Speaker 1: me that we do have yet to do podcasts on adoption,

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Speaker 1: which we promised will get around two UM. But since

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Speaker 1: then the pathway for foster care adoption has been opened

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Speaker 1: up a lot more. And in two thousand two, for example,

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Speaker 1: twenty seven thousand, or fifty three percent of the fifty

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Speaker 1: three thousand children who are adopted directly from foster care

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Speaker 1: that year were adopted by their foster parents. There are

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Speaker 1: quite a lot of benefits to having a foster family

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Speaker 1: adopt their foster child. If it comes to that UM

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Speaker 1: foster parents have a greater knowledge of the child's experiences.

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Speaker 1: It provides more consistency for the child. The parents know

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Speaker 1: what to expect, you know, if the child has any

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Speaker 1: it has you know, previous issues, maybe coming from an

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Speaker 1: abusive family or having UM drug or alcohol dependence. And

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Speaker 1: they're familiar with the birth families. So if if the

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Speaker 1: child you know if their ties there, if the child

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Speaker 1: is trying to maintain ties or the family wants to

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Speaker 1: maintain ties, they're they're familiar with the family as well,

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Speaker 1: And this would be a a good time to to

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Speaker 1: mention biological children of foster parents, because that was one

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Speaker 1: question that I had, was, UM, how the foster system

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Speaker 1: affects you know, kids who are are born and raised

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Speaker 1: in those foster homes. And there actually has not been

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Speaker 1: that much research done on it, and there was there

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Speaker 1: was one outcome study that we did run across. It

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Speaker 1: was it was a pretty small sample of interviews with

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Speaker 1: kids who had, you know, the biological children who had

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Speaker 1: grown up UM with foster parents. And not surprisingly, there

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Speaker 1: are some pretty unique challenges that go along with that. UM.

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Speaker 1: For instance, they found that us some biological children resented

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Speaker 1: the foster children for having talking about their own family UM.

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Speaker 1: Some foster children resisted the emotional adoption into the foster family,

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Speaker 1: which could cause tension with the biological kids, and some

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Speaker 1: biological children noted strong feelings of being less important to

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Speaker 1: their parents because their needs were perceived to be less

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Speaker 1: great and and they they even included this this diagram

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Speaker 1: of sort of a hierarchy that can sometimes just naturally

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Speaker 1: evolve within foster families between the needs of biological children

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Speaker 1: versus the foster children, and how parents can um you know,

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Speaker 1: service all of those things while maintaining healthy relations between

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Speaker 1: all of the kids, right, And it depends on how

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Speaker 1: long the foster child is with the family UM as

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Speaker 1: far as how close they get with all the members

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Speaker 1: of the family. And some children reported in this study

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Speaker 1: they interviewed, they talked to four adults and five children

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Speaker 1: like still children biological children UM and some reported that

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Speaker 1: while the foster child was taken in, he or she

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Speaker 1: did not become part of the nucleus of the family.

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Speaker 1: And there were several reasons given, some of those being

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Speaker 1: maybe the family is burned out. The kids are feeling

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Speaker 1: burned out from from caring taking in someone and caring

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Speaker 1: for them, And some parents operate this way to protect

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Speaker 1: the biological children and to compensate for all the time

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Speaker 1: and focus on the foster children. So some families might

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Speaker 1: just be trying so hard to balance you know, here

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Speaker 1: are biological children, but we've also promised to take care

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Speaker 1: of this other child. But it seems like for for

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Speaker 1: foster kids in particular, the biggest risk factor is that

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Speaker 1: issue of aging out of the system. This is happening

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Speaker 1: to roughly two kids every year who are in the

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Speaker 1: US who are turning eighteen, and uh, they don't really

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Speaker 1: have anywhere to turn. A lot of them might end

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Speaker 1: up in a homeless shelter on their eighteenth birthday because

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Speaker 1: of that. Yeah. Um, going back to Children's Rights dot Org,

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Speaker 1: they talked about children aging out of the system without

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Speaker 1: a permanent family, and like Kristen just said, twelve to

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Speaker 1: thirty percent struggled with homelessness after they aged out. And

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Speaker 1: this is looking at several different studies, which is why

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Speaker 1: the range of percentages is there. Um, forty six did

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Speaker 1: not complete high school and twenty five to fifty five

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Speaker 1: were found to be unemployed. And one thing that I found,

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Speaker 1: um interesting is the high rate of young women who

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Speaker 1: ended up pregnant within twelve to eighteen months of leaving

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Speaker 1: foster care, which is such a short a short time.

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Speaker 1: And also, uh, not surprisingly, fifty percent experienced extreme financial hardship. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you don't have anyone supporting you, I mean, it

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Speaker 1: would be hard to get through college and then finding

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Speaker 1: a job afterwards. So we have painted a pretty dire

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Speaker 1: picture of foster care in the US UM on a

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Speaker 1: more positive note. To to end things maybe on an upswing.

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Speaker 1: The government has tried to address some of these problems

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Speaker 1: UM in recent years. The Pew Commission on Children in

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Speaker 1: Foster Care, sponsored by the Putitable Trust, underwent a two

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Speaker 1: thousand four year long intensive study of the foster care

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Speaker 1: system in the US, and as a result of the

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Speaker 1: recommendations that they made UM from that research, in October

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Speaker 1: two thousand eight, Fostering Connections to Success and an Increasing

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Speaker 1: Adoptions Act was passed unanimously by Congress and signed into

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Speaker 1: law by President Bush and UM. That piece of legislation

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Speaker 1: was the most comprehensive foster care revision that the Congress

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Speaker 1: had made in decades. Um and An authorized federal resources

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Speaker 1: to allow more children to leave foster care for safe,

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Speaker 1: permanent homes with family members, and it also allowed for

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Speaker 1: provisions to support the adoption of children from foster care,

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Speaker 1: especially older youth and those with special needs. And then finally,

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Speaker 1: it paved the way for tribal governments to be able

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Speaker 1: to receive foster care funds directly from the federal government,

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Speaker 1: thus ensuring that more American, Indian, and Alaskan Native children

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Speaker 1: can remain with their own communities, because that has been

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Speaker 1: a huge problem of Native American children being plucked from

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Speaker 1: their tribal communities and sent away to private group homes. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: I want to hear from our listeners who have been

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Speaker 1: involved in the system. Do we have any social workers

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Speaker 1: out there who can comment on some of these statistics.

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Speaker 1: Do we have people who have been through the system themselves,

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Speaker 1: or how about foster families out there, right, because like

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Speaker 1: we said, we're really talking about and focusing on the

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Speaker 1: situation for the kids. Um, So foster parents out there.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine that it is an easy

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Speaker 1: job and it's certainly does not come with um huge

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Speaker 1: financial reward um. So, so please anyone involved who can

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Speaker 1: give us some insight because we've been going through a

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Speaker 1: lot of statistics and a lot of studies, a lot

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Speaker 1: of which you're predistressing. It's pretty grim, I've got to say.

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Speaker 1: But let us know your thoughts. As always, mom stuff

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Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com is where you can send your thoughts,

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Speaker 1: or you can always head over to Facebook and leave

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Speaker 1: us a comment up there, or you can tweet us

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Speaker 1: if you are very succinct at Mom's Stuff podcast. We

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Speaker 1: got a couple of letters right now to read. Okay,

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Speaker 1: this is from Christie. The subday line is why I exercise,

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Speaker 1: And now I still really want to know why people

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Speaker 1: exercise because I need some sort of motivation. Anyway, she says,

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Speaker 1: just finish your episode about exercise. I have two reasons

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Speaker 1: why I get up at three thirty am to juice

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Speaker 1: and then go running up down my three and a

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Speaker 1: half fear old daughter and my ten month old son.

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Speaker 1: Not only does it give me the energy to make

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Speaker 1: it through the day, including bath and bedtime, but I'm

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Speaker 1: setting a good example for them both, particularly my daughter.

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Speaker 1: It paid off a couple of weeks ago when we

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Speaker 1: ordered some new shoes for Lily. When they arrived and

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Speaker 1: she put them on, she ran around exclaiming, I have

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Speaker 1: mommy writting shoes. When I am still so amazed by

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Speaker 1: the fact that she makes up at three thirty in

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Speaker 1: the morning. That's the middle of the night. If I

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Speaker 1: roll over at three thirty in the morning and I

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Speaker 1: look at the clock, I'm like, oh, thank god, it's

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Speaker 1: so much time to sleep. And she's a mother. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: good for her. She's exercise thing does give you more

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Speaker 1: energy to make it to the day, but I need

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Speaker 1: the energy to exercise first, right exactly, and the morning

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Speaker 1: exercises is a big hurdle for me. Well, I've got

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Speaker 1: one here from Justine about our episode on Martha Stewart,

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Speaker 1: and she says, I just had to write in about

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Speaker 1: Martha Stewart to stay hecky. Yes, she is an excellent

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Speaker 1: role model. She is just as much of a feminist

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Speaker 1: as Hillary Clinton. The same right to equal opportunity that

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Speaker 1: allows a woman to be a world political leader or marine, says,

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Speaker 1: she can also choose to pour her heart into cooking, cleaning, crafting,

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Speaker 1: and entertaining or anything else she likes. The freedom is

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Speaker 1: in the choosing. Does Martha sometimes go a bit crazy? Yes,

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Speaker 1: her legions of adoring fans will tell you that that's

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Speaker 1: what lifts her from entertaining to sublime. She certainly doesn't

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Speaker 1: do this work to please a man or fit a mole,

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Speaker 1: and it seems to me that she does it for

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Speaker 1: the sake of making a wonderful life for herself and

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Speaker 1: those she loves. And what is more admirable than that. Indeed, Justine,

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Speaker 1: so again, if you've got anything to send our way,

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Speaker 1: you can email us mom Stuff at Discovery dot com.

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Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook, and you can follow

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Of course, you

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00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 1: can check out the blog during the week. It's stuff

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Speaker 1: Mom Never told You from how Stuff Works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

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Speaker 1: from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as we

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